Ta183 vs Vampire

[vikingBerserker]

Maybe it's just the pic but it kinda looks unstable. It seems the designs that came afterwards fuslage was longer but I think Soren is right, it does kinda look like the SAAB Tunnan.


I have to admit, it does look cool as hell.

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Is this picture a forgery?



It's supposedly a Ta-183 landing somewhere in China or Russia, but some doubt if it's real.

AMtech 1/48 Ta-183

If you type in Ta-183 windtunnel on Google you can find pictures of a wind tunnel model of the Ta-183 Kurt Tank built, but it doesn't say much how it performed. It doesn't even say if the Allies tested it or not.

It's pretty scarce information on it, much was probably lost after the war.

Edit: here's a picture of the wind tunnel model.





Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Luft '46 entry

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by Waynos

FlyboyJ - If Tank had it right with the design of the Ta 183 why did he himself never use that design again?

Funding and employment. Lets face it, although he had his shot in Argentina, it wasn't Germany in terms of resources and money, but then again it's the basic layout that was taken a step further in the generation of fighters.

Originally Posted by Waynos

The tail design of the Ta 183 is not the same as the Lavochkin you posted above, it is extremely unorthodox and, in my view, dangerously so.

Why? Construction? Aerodynamics?

Originally Posted by Waynos

Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin. Why would you expect the Ta 183 to be any different?

Why not?? Again, what did it look like in the wind tunnel?

[vikingBerserker]

When were drag chutes first used, 47 or 48??

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by Waynos

FlyboyJ - If Tank had it right with the design of the Ta 183 why did he himself never use that design again? The tail design of the Ta 183 is not the same as the Lavochkin you posted above, it is extremely unorthodox and, in my view, dangerously so. Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin. Why would you expect the Ta 183 to be any different?

No but many planes were influenced, influenced does not mean copied. Also Tank new that the tail design might not be the best, that is why he designed 2 other prototypes with 2 different tail designs.

[delcyros]

Originally Posted by vikingBerserker

When were drag chutes first used, 47 or 48??

The Ar-234 and Ju-287 jets used them in 1944, too.
I tend to think that most Ta-183 pictures aviable were soviet propaganda tricks. They succeeded in this, the soviet Ta-183 even got a NATO-code.
When comparing the Ta-183 wih the Pulqui please do not forget that Multhopp designed the Ta-183, not Kurt Tank!

[GrauGeist]

For what it's worth, the guys at AVHistory had a Ta183 for CFS3 built on Tank's data and it flew and handled well in the sim to a certain degree, but it had a tendancy to roll if you gave it any slack what so ever. It would also enter into a spin that was almost always fatal if you allowed excessive loading.

I know that this is merely a sim experience, but I trust the flight models of the guys at AVHistory for thier 1% accuracy over Oleg's people any day.

By the way, here's the 3-views of the Ta183 II and Ta183 III:

[Juha]

I noted four things
highly swept wings without nothing, in drawings I have seen, to hinder spanvise airflow
Very stubby body, short engine doesn’t usually mean short fuselage, usually they put “flamepipe” behind engine and accepted some loss in trust and got reasonable fuselage length.
I also have some doubt on the tail shape, if made structurally enough strong it would be heavy.
T-tail had its own problems at high AoA

Juha

[Colin1]

Originally Posted by Waynos

Look at how every high mounted tail (including your pic above) is mounted on a stiff, broad chord fin

F-104?

[Waynos]

FlyboyJ;

The location does not explain why he changed the design so much, indeed it would have been easier and cheaper to leave the design unchanged, unless he thought the tail was flawed?

Not really - there could have been tooling and manufacturing considerations as well. Again, look where the Pulqui was to be built. At that time I don't think Argentina ever produced a production aircraft

Both. even aerodynamiscists of the day beleived it would be seriously prone to flutter, I see no reason to disagree. Given its shape that flutter could quickly become catastrophic failure. Like I said, no tail like it was ever flown on any other T-tail, fighter or otherwise, even the ones designed by Tank.

Who are these "aerodynamicists"? How could they make such an assessment with out seeing wind tunnel data and testing?

[lingo]

This has turned into an especially interesting thread.

[Colin1]

Originally Posted by lingo

This has turned into an especially interesting thread.

It got off to a slow start
but I was hoping and sort of knew it would it would get interesting. By getting everybody on this forum to thrash out an argument on a little-documented type, we could end up with a reasonable pool of theories as to how it might have fared.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by Waynos

Adler;

precisely. Which is why the Ta 183 would not have succeeded.

Please explain how you can prove that? It was never built...

[FLYBOYJ]

Waynos - I accidentally edited out the other portion of your original post when responding - sorry

Originally Posted by Waynos

Not really - there could have been tooling and manufacturing considerations as well. Again, look where the Pulqui was to be built. At that time I don't think Argentina ever produced a production aircraft



Who are these "aerodynamicists"? How could they make such an assessment with out seeing wind tunnel data and testing?

[Waynos]

I wondered what had happened. I thought I was going insane
Is there any way to get it back as I don't have a copy and I was hoping several of the points I raised could be debated?

In answer to the questions posed by you and Adler though, I am referring to a point made in the book Luftwaffe secret Projects - Fighters 1939-45 by Walter Schick and Ingolf Meyer where, unfortunately, no names are given. I am not trying to offer it up as empirical proof as, as adler rightly points out, there is none. I am saying it is a viewpoint that I agree with. The line that Adler quoted above should have ended with 'in my opinion'.

I base that opinion on reading from the various histories on aircraft like the Hawker P.1040, Gloster Javelin, et al, where flutter was found to be s serious issue around the tail, threatening structural integrity and requiring modifications to be made.

There is no definitive link between these and the Ta 183, but none of the other aircraft had a tail as 'extreme' (for want of a better phrase) or slender in their design and the cure was relatively modest but still caused delays. My thinking is that if the structure of the tail of something a brutish as the Javelin was threatened by flutter, why on earth would the Ta 183 NOT be?

I also believe that the design of the Pulqui, at least in the tail area, was aerodynamically and structurally more mature than the Ta 183. I see no logical reason for it to be any other way and I don't think it would necessarily have been 'easier' to buil;d that the former, which was designed to be built rapidly in austere conditions anyway, even to the extent of using plywood.

I supposed that what I am basically saying is that IF I was in a postion where I was in charge of Luftwaffe procurement and I was told "you have the funding, time and resourses to put ONE of these designs into service (a luxury that did not really exist) I would have picked the Me P.1101.

Side issue, Does anyone (apart from me) think that the Saab 32 Lansen was lifted directly from the Me P1110 in its Feb 45 configuration ?